A Wish List for the iPhone

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I happen to use a Research In Motion (RIMM) Blackberry, and have intermittently used a third-party software application to synchronize the data on my Mac with the Blackberry, but I do it only rarely, as the sync operations rarely work correctly. Finally, Apple could do this right.

Photos and Video: Will it have a camera? It had better, since practically all wireless phones do these days, thanks to cheap CMOS sensors from companies like Micron Technology (MU). And there's no earthly reason why that camera shouldn't be able to shoot short video clips that can be imported into iMovie.

Indeed, integrated iSight cameras are now so small they can be built into the display frame of a MacBook or MacBook Pro notebook. Some rumors have said the screen on the phone is "breathtaking." If true, it tells me that the phone will by definition be video-ready, in every sense of the word, both for watching and for creating.

Some rumors emerged a while back about video-chat capabilities. I wonder about this. Video chat is a marquis feature of Apple's iChat software on the Mac. It sure would be cool if this phone could do video chat, but imagine the cost to battery life. Still, I'm sure it could be done.

And while we're on the subject of power, one would hope that replacement batteries would be easy to swap in and out on the fly. And they should be readily available for a reasonable price, and easily charged in some kind of dock.

Super Headphones: Like any wireless phone worth its salt, the iPhone almost certainly will support a Bluetooth headset. A headset that doubles as headphones is nothing technically new. I've tried a few from companies like Plantronics (PLT), Belkin, and others, but none impressed me all that much. If Apple can get this formula right, the white cords that were the trademark status symbol of iPod owners could disappear entirely.

And the very same headset should pair easily via Bluetooth with a Mac or PC, thus making it useful for audio and video iChat or other chat programs, making VOIP calls via Skype (EBAY) or the Gizmo Project, listening to iTunes from the computer, gaming, or whatever else it might be called upon to do. When out of range of the computer, the headset would switch automatically back to its pairing with the phone.

Data Storage: And there's no earthly reason why this phone, which will supposedly store music and media on flash memory chips, shouldn't have the same "disk mode" option the iPod does. The iPod is not only a music player, but it's a great data storage device. I've used it to take files home from work. When connected to a Mac or PC, the phone should appear either on the Mac desktop or within the Windows finder as an external hard drive, just like a keychain drive.

This would make it easy to back up a disk image of all the important data stored on the phone for that inevitable day when you lose your phone and have to replace it. This backup of the phone data should take place automatically, every time you connect the phone to the Mac or PC. Lose one, and the replacement should load the data from the old one, so that it works as if you never lost it.

And it should not only be chock full of fun features, but it should also help me get things done. All that flash memory should be as accessible as on a USB keychain drive, meaning that if I want to fill some of it full of Microsoft Word files and spread sheets to take home from the office, I should be able to do that.

And it shouldn't matter one bit if the machine at the office runs Windows, and the machine at home is a Mac. And in the event that I lose the phone on the way home, those files should be encrypted, just like they are on recent Macs that support FileVault.

Awesome Opportunities: Finally, it should be readily able for creative software developers to do what they do best: develop awesome applications. Apple should let developers create their own mini applications on the iPhone the way they do on the Mac. Apple developers are constantly devising fascinating little hacks that always make the day-to-day scut work of personal computing more interesting.

Basically I'm looking for Apple to fulfill all those many unfulfilled promises that the wireless phone manufacturers like Motorola (MOT) and Nokia (NOK), Samsung and Sony Ericsson (SNE) (ERICY) have failed to deliver. Because if not Apple, then who?

Hesseldahl is a reporter for BusinessWeek.com.